XXXI.
HE SPEAKS THE MERE CONTRARY.
Love's Labor's Lost; i.—1.
"Edith," Arthur Fenton said, looking up from his paper at breakfast that morning, "Dr. Ashton is dead."
"Dead!" she exclaimed.
Her husband's indifferent tone shocked her. She was not without an unphrased feeling that death was so sacred or at least so solemn a subject that it should be treated with reverence. Any jesting upon it made her cringe, and the light mention of it seemed to her almost immoral.
"So the paper says," replied he; and he read aloud the paragraph containing the announcement of Dr. Ashton's sudden death from heart disease. "It is too bad," he commented. "He was a mighty smart fellow and square as a brick. I wonder what made him do it now."
"Made him do what?" she asked. "How strangely you talk. Made him die?"
"Yes; that's what I meant. I knew he had a trouble which would probably make him do it sooner or later, but I'd no idea it would come so soon."
"Arthur, what do you mean," Edith repeated, the tears coming into her eyes. "I don't like to hear you speak of death so—so—flippantly."
"Flippantly, my dear?" returned he. "I'm sure I don't know why you should use that word. If a man takes his life, why shouldn't I speak of it,—to you, that is; of course I should not in public."